Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam

By January 1968, despite an influx of half a million American troops, the fighting in Vietnam seemed to be at a stalemate. Yet General William Westmoreland, commander of American forces, announced a new phase of the war in which "the end begins to come into view". The North Vietnamese had different ideas. In mid-1967, the leadership in Hanoi had started planning an offensive intended to win the war in a single stroke.

In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors

On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed in the South Pacific by a Japanese submarine. An estimated 300 men were killed upon impact; close to 900 sailors were cast into the Pacific Ocean, where they remained undetected by the navy for nearly four days and nights. Battered by a savage sea, they struggled to stay alive, fighting off sharks, hypothermia, and dementia. By the time rescue arrived, all but 317 men had died. The captain's subsequent court-martial left many questions unanswered

The First Star: Red Grange and the Barnstorming Tour That Launched the NFL

In The First Star, acclaimed sports writer Lars Anderson recounts the thrilling story of Harold "Red" Grange, the Galloping Ghost of the gridiron, and the wild barnstorming tour that earned professional football a place in the American sporting firmament.

Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters

They were called Easy Company, but their mission was never easy. Immortalized as the Band of Brothers, they suffered huge casualties while liberating Europe in an unparalleled record of bravery under fire. Dick Winters led them through the Battle of the Bulge, the attack on Foy, where Easy Company reached its breaking point, and finally into Germany, by which time each member had been wounded. Outside Munich, they liberated an S.S. death camp and captured Berchtesgaden, Hitler's alpine retreat.

A Brief History of Seven Killings

Winner, The Man Booker Prize, 2015 Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters - assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts - A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 1970s, to the crack wars in 1980s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 1990s.

The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

What do Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel have in common? Aside from polarizing personalities, both served as chief of staff to the president of the United States - as did Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta, and a relative handful of others. The chiefs of staff, often referred to as "the gatekeepers", wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond; they decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push POTUS' agenda, and - most crucially - are the first in line to the leader of the free world's ear.

The Power of the Dog

This explosive novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tijuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you've never seen it.

Madden: A Biography

Several years after his playing career was cut short by injury before it had a chance to really begin, John Madden was hired as an assistant coach by the Oakland Raiders, one of professional football's most iconoclastic franchises. Two years later he was named the team's head coach and proceeded to lead the Raiders to five championship games in his first seven seasons. Following years of heartbreaking losses in some of history's most memorable games.

The Great Escape

It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred men for every hour, every day, and every night for more than a year. With only their bare hands and crude homemade tools, they sank shafts, built underground railroads, forged passports, drew maps, faked weapons, and tailored German clothes.

Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution

Most people who resist logical thought in baseball preach "tradition" and "respecting the game". But many of baseball's traditions go back to the 19th century, when the pitcher's job was to provide the batter with a ball he could hit and fielders played without gloves. Instead of fearing change, Brian Kenny wants fans to think critically, reject outmoded groupthink, and embrace the changes that have come with the "sabermetric era".

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

In White Trash, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early 19th century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ's Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty.

League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth

So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America's most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: A chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players - including some of the all-time greats - to madness.

Publisher's Summary

On December 28, 1958, the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts met under the lights of Yankee Stadium for that season's NFL Championship game. Football, growing in popularity amid America's post-war economic boom, was still greatly over-shadowed by the country's favored pastime - baseball - but the 1958 championship proved to be the turning point for pro football.

On the field and roaming the sidelines were 17 future Hall of Famers, including Colts stars Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, and Gino Marchetti, and Giants greats Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, and assistant coaches Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry.

Played on a freezing Sunday evening in front of 64,000 fans and an estimated 45 million television viewers around the country - at that time the largest crowd to have ever watched a football game - the championship would become the first sudden-death contest in NFL history. With two minutes left in regulation, Baltimore had possession deep in its own territory, and the ball in the hands of the still unproven quarterback Johnny Unitas.

The Best Game Ever is a brilliant portrait of how a single game changed the history of American sports. Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the championship, it is destined to be a sports classic.

What the Critics Say

"Bowden (Black Hawk Down, Guests of the Ayatollah) succeeds in making a contest from a half-century ago seem fresh, in part because he has a keen sense for the anecdotal. Mr. Bowden's best trick, though, is that he gets out of the way of a great story and a great game." (The Wall Street Journal)

This is a great book even if you know nothing about football or outright hate the game. The author does a wonderful job of telling the story of a history-making contest. He liberally sprinkles the story with tidbits that surprise the listener -- little things that stay with you. I never heard of Raymond Barry before but the fact that he only had one fumble in 13 years of pro-play is extraordinary. I didn't realize Landry and Lombardi were coaches for the same team! Who knew? Two legendary men working for the same team --- and they LOST ?!?!? In a sudden death overtime??? And the TV broadcast almost lost the last play??? What are the odds?
I hope the Mr. Bowden has more sports stories to tell.

If this title sounds remotely interesting to you, you're gonna love the book. Bowden has a great story to tell and does a terrific job, with lots of background information that adds considerably to the experience. Just one complaint keeps me from giving the audiobook 5 stars: the narrator, who otherwise does a good job, mispronounces many of the key participants' names, over and over and over again! How hard would it have been to get them right -- one call to the NFL office? Hey, he did get Jim Brown and Tom Landry right, and if you're young enough you'll never know the difference. Still and all, Bowden has you right there with some of the game's greatest in a truly historic and dramatic game. This is a treat not to be missed by real football fans.

I'm an NFL football fan, and I try to watch 2 to 3 NFL games a week. This book sounded remotely interesting, and since I had never read a book about sports, I figured "Why Not?". This audiobook was fantastic. It talked about the famous 1958 game with the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts. Honestly I didn't really think I cared about that game, but after hearing this book, I realized how big of an impact to the NFL it had. I also learned a lot about the modern day NFL, as well as about some of the old timers like Sumerall and Gifford. I was very happy I bought it, and have recommended it to all my friends!

The book started out slow as the characters were setup. But I found myself not wanting to get out of the car at the end of a day as I was listening to this book. As usual in Mark Bowden's books the characters become so real that you feel you are there.
As someone that grew up in the 60's this really brought back a lot of memories. I would recommend it.

Bowden does a nice job of providing backgrounds for this interesting cast of owners, coaches and players. When I realized what an amazing group of people were involved in this game, on both sides, I understand why it was a pivotal event in sports history. The game play narration and timeline were well done. I have more respect for the teams talent and coaching after listening to this book.

The more I listened, the more disappointed I was. It should have been subtitled "From the Colts' point-of-view" or "When Raymond met John". After listening to the description of the game, it's no surprise at the end to find that the author lived in Baltimore, knew the players, and that his sister got married at Art Donovan's place. It doesn't live up to the sports books of the author's hero, David Halberstam.
The narrator needs pronunciation lessons on Marchetti, Tunnel, Katcavage. And Little Mo's first name was Dick, not Dale.
It's cool that there are some tapes from the NBC broadcast used as part of the audio presentation. People around the country may have listened to that broadcast but the author says New Yorkers listened to NBC. They listened to the Giants' football network on WNEW Radio.

This may be the greatest game ever played but the book is really dedicated to the Baltimore Colts. There is precious little about the various Giant's perspective. Also, even if that doesn't concern you, the narrator constantly mispronounces names like Gino Marchetti etc. If you are a football fan mispronounced names will bother you. There a lot of Giants alive who played in that game but very few were interviewed for this book. Instead it probably should have been titled "The Raymond Berry story" because the author genuflects to Berry the entire book. I would not purchase this book.